Points of Interest

If Lea wasn't professional mountain biking, she would have pursued a professional skiing career. She grew up downhill ski racing, and as a teenager enrolled full-time in a tutorial program at Smuggler's Notch in Vermont so she could practice skiing daily.

Lea is an avid croquet player after playing daily while battling mononucleosis.

Lea and her sister, Sabra, co-founded and are co-directors of a non-profit, all-girls mountain bike mentoring program called Little Bellas.

Personal

Some kids are just born to be athletes. Whether it is through athletic parents or other circumstances, some kids are simply proficient at whatever sport they pursue. That was the case with Lea Davison.

Her mom encouraged Davison and her sister, Sabra, to pursue any sport they desired. The girls tried everything from soccer, backpacking trips, sailing and windsurfing, but the two sports that really stuck were downhill skiing and cross-country running. Davison spent a lot of her youth skiing Vermont's abundant mountains. During the winter, Davison didn't attend normal high school, but instead enrolled full-time in a tutorial program at Smuggler's Notch so she could train daily. She continued skiing and competed on Middlebury College's team. She won the eastern collegiate slalom title, went to the NCAA national championships and placed 11th in the slalom, and was the captain as a senior. In high school, she earned the state championship twice in cross-country. She and her sister co-captained the school's running team to a pair of state titles.

It was while she was training for cross-country as a junior in high school that a boyfriend encouraged her to join the school's mountain bike club. That summer, she participated in weekly rides on Wednesday nights at the Catamount Outdoor Center, and her passion for cycling only grew from there.

Success quickly came, too. Davison placed seventh at the 2001 UCI Junior Mountain Bike World Championships in Vail, Colo. She also posted strong results for Middlebury College, winning the women's Division II short track and cross-country national championship races in 2004. As a professional, Davison continued to have success and found the podium twice (fourth in cross-country and third in short track) at the 2008 USA Cycling Mountain Bike National Championships.

After suffering a hip injury in late 2009 that kept her off the bike the entire 2010 season, Davison enjoyed perhaps her best season as a cyclist in 2011. In addition to winning the super D and placing second in the cross-country race at the 2011 USA Cycling Mountain Bike Cross-Country National Championships in Sun Valley, Idaho, Davison registered a pair of top-10 finishes in UCI Mountain Bike World Cups before placing 10th at the 2011 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in Champery, Switzerland.

The Davison sisters co-founded and are co-directors of a non-profit, all-girls mountain bike mentoring program called Little Bellas. They run Sunday sessions and have a two-week long camp in Vermont. In 2010, the program expanded to a national level and now hosts a three-day camp in conjunction with the Sea Otter Classic in Monterey, Calif., as well as another camp at the Chequamegon Fat Tire Festival in Cable, Wisc. The Little Bellas is a mountain bike organization whose goal is to help young women realize their potential through cycling.

This Article Published November 30, 2011
For more information contact: jhammond -at- usacycling dot org

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